


downtown storm with aries rising (just another LA devotee)

by rememberthemoment



Category: Panic! at the Disco, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: M/M, Panic at the Disco - Freeform, Quarantine, Rare Pairings, Smut, topinquarantine, twenty one pilots - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:41:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23957854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rememberthemoment/pseuds/rememberthemoment
Summary: “LA is going into lockdown tomorrow night at midnight.” A pause hangs in the air before he continues speaking. “I just… I have to go. If I don’t… who knows when I can see Brendon again?”Tyler nods a little, still silent like he’s considering his words. “When are you coming back?”“I don’t know.” Josh mumbles, shrugging a little bit.
Relationships: Josh Dun/Brendon Urie
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	downtown storm with aries rising (just another LA devotee)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> written for a quarantine challenge put on by @argentress
> 
> thanks to @grouplovehoodie as always for encouraging me and double checking that i know how to spell <3

_“Hey J, it’s me. Just got to my gate at the airport. I had so much fun seeing you, wish it wasn’t over already. Anyway, we’re boarding soon… call me when you get this, I know you’re in the studio. See you soon.”_

They never say goodbye, only “see you soon”. It’s meant to be reassuring, never a concrete farewell that suggests it’ll be too long before they see each other again. And it works for them - between tour dates they’ll fly to see each other, and it just so happens that Brendon’s tour had ended in Columbus this time around. A long weekend at Josh’s place followed, but now Brendon is back on a plane to Los Angeles.

He’s probably home by now, Josh thinks, looking at the time and figuring the time difference by a couple hours. It’s too late to call, Josh realizes, so he sends over a quick text instead to respond to Brendon’s following text that he’s at home.  
  
 **glad you made it home safe. never goodbye, always see you soon. talk to you in the morning after you sleep off the weekend ;)**

It’s only been a couple hours since he last saw Brendon, and Josh misses him already. Luckily he’s got plans to see him soon - a plane ticket with his name on it is only a couple weeks away. It’s late enough that Josh pours a bowl of cereal and sits down in front of the tv, turning it on. Whatever he was watching last comes on, and Josh relaxes into the background noise while he’s eating and scrolling Twitter on his phone.

And sure, Josh knew that there was a viral outbreak that was starting to sweep through the country. Everybody knew that - it was evident everywhere in the world around him. But there’s a news article that someone he follows liked, and the title of it makes Josh freeze and drop his spoon into the bowl. As the spoon lays forgotten in the paper bowl, Josh opens the article and scans through it as quickly as he can.

What he discovers leaves him feeling bleak: LA is officially going into lockdown in two days for complete quarantine. Two days. Forty-eight hours. The length of a regular weekend. In that amount of time, Josh won’t be able to go to LA to see Brendon. Not now, not in a couple weeks, not for some unknown amount of time.

In a quick moment of decision, Josh gets up, tosses his cereal in the trash, and beelines for the bedroom. He needs to sleep before he does anything else.

\-----

The alarm goes off far too early, and there’s no way Josh has slept enough. Be that as it may, he needs to get going, and really soon. In a short amount of time, he’s ready to walk out the door, grabbing his spare key off the hook by the door and locking his front door tightly. With a full gas tank, he’s prepared to head out, but there’s one thing he needs to do first.

It’s early, so early, but Josh knows that where he’s going there will be someone awake at this hour. Instead of heading for the door to knock and potentially wake up people that don’t need to be, he’s sending a text. Sooner rather than later, Josh gets a text back, and he’s hurrying up to the front door of the house he’s parked in front of.  
  
“Dude, isn’t it kind of early? I know I’m still awake, but-”

“I don’t really have a lot of time,” Josh says, shuffling his feet a little on the doorstep. Tyler looks like he hasn’t slept yet in front of him - but that’s typical - and he’s even more perplexed looking when Josh hands him a houseplant and his spare keys “Make sure you put it facing the sun and water when it gets dry.”

“Josh, are you going to tell me what’s up?”

Josh sighs and looks down before he’s glancing back up at his best friend.

“LA is going into lockdown tomorrow night at midnight.” A pause hangs in the air before he continues speaking. “I just… I have to go. If I don’t… who knows when I can see Brendon again?”

Tyler nods a little, still silent like he’s considering his words. “When are you coming back?”

“I don’t know.” Josh mumbles, shrugging a little bit. “When I can, I guess? I just can’t be away from him for that long.”

A long embrace follows their short conversation, Josh hugging Tyler tightly to his chest and breathing out a long breath he didn’t know he was holding onto. Before he knows it, Josh’s feet are carrying him back to the car, and then he’s making his way to the highway.

\-----

The miles seem to drag on and on as Josh crosses state lines, the highway seeming to stretch endlessly in front of him. Traffic is light, especially once he’s out of sight of major cities. Josh does make sure to text Brendon when he’s taking a break at a rest area to stretch his legs. It isn’t much, just a follow up to his text from the night before. 

Brendon is busy working on an album - Josh knows that he went straight home to do just that - so it’s unsurprising that he doesn’t get a text back for hours after that. In the meantime, Josh is changing his playlist selection to keep himself awake. Red Bull and snacks keep him going as the hours tick on, along with knowing that he’s getting ever closer to LA.

Once it gets dark, Josh has to give in to the need to sleep - at least for a few hours - so he stops at a hotel off a well-lit exit on the side of the highway. He hardly knows what state he’s even in, and Josh keeps his beanie pulled down over his messy hair as he hands over his card to pay for a room. The front desk attendant doesn’t say anything if she does know who he is, and after the room key is pressed into his hand, Josh mumbles “thanks” before he’s heading back outside to the car. 

The minutes before he lays down are spent setting an alarm that’s going to go off way too soon and contemplating the miles he has left. With the time that’s slowly ticking down to the complete lockdown of Los Angeles, Josh knows that he’s got a little bit of wiggle room to get there before the metaphorical gates close and stop him from getting to his destination.

Before he knows it, Josh is laying his head down and out like a light, knowing he’s got one final long day ahead of him.

\-----

The harsh noise of the alarm is only made better by Josh’s immediate realization that _he gets to see Brendon today_. Or at least in the early hours of the next morning, but he thinks that’s probably splitting hairs at this point. The sun is just rising as he pulls out of the hotel to get back on the highway, and the coffee he’d stopped for is coursing through Josh’s veins as he makes the last push to get across the rest of the country to the west coast.

\-----

By the time Josh hits the city limits sign for Los Angeles, it’s pouring down rain, but luckily the traffic is practically non-existent since a lot of other people have already packed it up and isolated in preparation for the quarantine. It’s almost eerie to see the streets and highways so empty, but Josh is laser focused on getting to his destination. The rain doesn’t help, slowing him down every step of the way as he slowly makes his way to the street Brendon lives on. 

The house looks just as he remembers, and Josh is punching in the gate code as quickly as possible to avoid getting too much water inside the car. At the risk of alerting Brendon to his arrival, Josh skips parking in the garage, opting to leave his car pulled up to the garage. The lights in the house are dim, meaning that Brendon is probably not there. That, combined with the fact that it’s late at night and Josh knows that Brendon is in the middle of recording an album means only one thing - the backyard studio.

Josh gets himself together for a minute before he opens the door of the car, shoving his phone and keys in his pocket and slinging his bag over his shoulder. The rain is still pouring down, and all Josh can hope for is that Brendon isn’t sleeping in the studio or playing too loud - or with headphones on - so that he can’t hear knocking on the door.

By the time Josh reaches the door of the studio he’s absolutely _soaked_ all the way through but he knocks anyway. There’s a pause where he thinks maybe Brendon won’t answer the door - he hadn’t considered that since he’s arriving uninvited and without notice - but then the door swings open and Josh is met with the neon electric side inside the studio, along with the lights Brendon keeps turned on in there. For a second they just stare at each other, until Josh is saying “hi” quietly, and then Brendon is latching onto him in the tightest hug Josh has had since he left Tyler and Columbus - it even makes Josh drop his bag to the ground.

"What the _fuck_ , dude?” Brendon breathes into Josh’s shoulder, sounding like he can’t believe that Josh is right there in front of him. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m soaking wet--”

“I don’t _care_ ,” Brendon says, even as he pulls Josh inside and closes the door, grabbing Josh’s bag to pull it inside too. “How are you… what are you… how did you get here?”

“I drove,” Josh says, like that should be obvious. “I heard LA was going into lockdown for quarantine, and I just… I had to get here and see you.” Brendon is hugging Josh again, and now they’re _both_ going to be wet, and neither of them seems to care right now.

“Here, just…” Brendon says, turning away for a minute after they part and saving his work quickly to shut off his studio computer. “Let’s get inside, yeah?”

“If you’re working I can just--”

“Josh, you’re here. I was stuck on that one anyway. Let me get you inside and into something dry.” Brendon leaves no room for argument on that, grabbing onto Josh’s hand and pulling him back towards the door of the studio. Josh takes an extra second to grab his bag again before they’re dashing across the yard to the back door of Brendon’s house.

By the time they get to Brendon’s room, Josh is already feeling the chill set in from the wet clothes clinging to his skin. “I think everything in my bag is wet,” he says, rustling through it in disappointment after he strips out of his wet clothes to toss in with them.

Brendon scoffs, grabbing Josh’s bag and leaving the room for a minute. Josh hears the dryer open and close before it starts up, and Josh is so grateful for his boyfriend right now. Once Brendon’s back inside, he grabs a pair of boxers and sweatpants, tossing them Josh’s way, and while Josh gets changed into those, Brendon is grabbing a soft t-shirt and hoodie for Josh to slip into.

“You’re the best,” he says, pulling the hoodie over his head gratefully while Brendon changes his own clothes. As he finally lays down on Brendon’s bed and gets under the covers, Josh realizes in a moment how tired he actually is. The exhaustion sets in even more when Brendon turns off the light and shuffles under the blanket behind him, wrapping Josh up tightly in his arms.

Brendon is busy chattering away about what he’d been working on, and about how excited he is to have Josh here for quarantine. Josh is listening to the words, but mostly the comfort of having Brendon’s voice in person instead of over a phone line is what’s lulling him to sleep in the middle of Brendon talking about a new song he’d started on tonight.

\-----

Josh settles into Brendon’s life in LA as easily as its possible to. From the first morning when he wakes up well into the afternoon and Brendon is still laying there with him to a week later when they’re crawling out of bed around noon, it’s just _easy_ being around Brendon all the time.

This particular morning, a week into Josh’s unending stay in California, Josh hangs back for a minute to go through Brendon’s closet, picking out a t-shirt to wear to the kitchen so that he can cook breakfast. After his clothes dried after the first night, Josh has stuck to wearing them, but something about this morning makes him want to wear something that smells like Brendon. 

Brendon is busy brewing coffee when Josh pads into the kitchen, pulling the cabinet open to grab the waffle mix while he opens the fridge to grab the ingredients he needs from there as well. Brendon looks up at him briefly but seems to double take, and Josh just cocks his head to the side.  
  
“What?” he asks, and Brendon just brings a cup of coffee over to Josh, setting it down on the counter and hopping up to sit next to it before he’s pressing his hand to Josh’s chest. 

“‘S my shirt, isn’t it?” Brendon asks, and Josh nods, looking up at Brendon instead of down to the hand on his chest. Josh nods, and Brendon looks up, their eyes meeting for a moment that hangs between them. Before Josh can move away, Brendon is pulling Josh into his space and pressing their lips together.

It’s not like they haven’t kissed before this morning - they’d spent the afternoon after Josh got there talking and softly kissing to celebrate being together for quarantine. But this time feels like there’s intent behind it, and Josh can’t say that he’s mad about it in the slightest.

Josh sets down the items in his hands so that he can focus on slipping his hands around Brendon’s hips, stepping in closer so that he can stand between Brendon’s legs on the counter. The kiss gets a little deeper, Brendon’s legs wrapping around his hips and one hand threading into his hair while the other pushes up under his shirt a little. 

It doesn’t stay slow for long though - after just a minute, Brendon is scooting closer on the counter, pressing their hips together and tightening his legs around Josh’s waist. Josh groans into it and pushes his fingers into Brendon’s hips even more. After a minute, Josh makes a decision, smoothing his hands down to Brendon’s ass and picking him up off the counter to walk back towards the bedroom. Breakfast can easily wait at this point.

Back in the bedroom, Josh is dropping Brendon to the bed and crawling up after him, moaning out loud when their hips push together again. All thoughts of staying dressed are thrown out the windows - just as easily as their clothes are tossed and forgotten on the floor of Brendon’s room. It’s been so _long_ since they’ve been naked together like this, and Josh takes full advantage by trailing kisses down Brendon’s chest and stomach before he’s easily taking Brendon’s dick in his mouth and sinking down until he can push his nose against his boyfriend’s skin.

Brendon always sounds so good above him, gasping and moaning and pulling at Josh’s hair in waves as Josh pushes him ever closer to the edge. But before he can get there, Josh is pulling off, leaving Brendon cursing at him. It changes to a pleasure filled groan once Josh is busy fumbling for the lube and pressing a finger right inside him, curling it and making Brendon arch his back into the motion. Josh grins to himself as he does that, easily slipping another finger inside. Two become three, and sooner rather than later Josh is _more_ than ready to get on to the main event.

Josh moves to steady himself, starting to push inside Brendon slowly before he’s leaning up to kiss him, using that as a distraction so that Brendon will forget that it’s been awhile since they’ve done this. Even so, the slide is easy, and Josh is stifling a moan into Brendon’s mouth as they get a rhythm going that’s slow but steady, making both of them breathe out hard in unison. 

It doesn’t last as long as either of them would like, but at the same time, Josh is too eager to be with Brendon in this way again to care right now. In the end, they both come right after each other, and Josh takes a second to pull out before they’re curling up back in bed together, breakfast forgotten.

\-----

A couple weeks later, Josh is on a facetime call with Tyler later in the evening - Brendon is still working hard in the studio, leaving Josh to his own devices. Sometimes Josh sits in the studio with him, but tonight is for him to get caught up with Tyler again. They try to talk a couple times a week, but lately Josh has been wrapped up in spending time with Brendon, so it falls to tonight to let them have a long chat.

After they catch up and talk music, there’s a short silence before Tyler speaks again.  
  
“So… how are you doing out there?” Tyler asks, tilting his hard a little bit at Josh through the phone. “You seem happier since you got out there.”   
  
Josh hums for a second before he answers. “I mean… I love being around Brendon, and I’m glad I decided to come spend quarantine out here. California is great, I missed the sun a lot.”

“When are you coming back?”

That _is_ the million dollar question, isn’t it? Tyler’s been slowly mailing him things anyway, plenty of clothes and some other things that Josh has requested over the weeks that they’ve been apart. Josh hasn’t really put too much thought into it at all if he’s honest, because he’s been so focused on being with Brendon and whenever this quarantine is finally over…

“I’m not coming back,” Josh says softly, avoiding Tyler’s eyes as he answers. There’s a pause, and then--

“What do you _mean_ you’re not coming back?” Tyler finally responds, and Josh just looks away for another moment until Tyler breaks the silence again. “It’s not like you’re gonna be together forever or like you _love_ him or anything.”

There’s a long pause in the conversation before Josh speaks.

“I think that I am, though,” Josh says, his voice still low and soft. 

“What?”

“‘M in love with Brendon.”

Another pause.

“...You have to stay, Josh,” Tyler says, and Josh finally looks back to his best friend, meeting his eyes at that statement. “I mean it. You just… you’re happier there. And we can do the band this way, we’ve _been_ doing it this way, and… you should definitely stay.”

Josh wishes he could hug Tyler right now, but miles and a cell phone connection separate them. They chat a little about the logistics of all of this, about getting Josh to LA full time. But that’s short lived when Josh hears Brendon coming back into the house - those the call ends with a promise to text and figure out all the details.

\-----

“Hey Bren,” Josh says when they’re getting ready for bed that night. Following his call with Tyler, Josh finally has the courage to bring this up to his boyfriend. It doesn’t feel as scary now that he knows that Tyler can see the change in him too. Sure, they’ve been dating for awhile and seeing each other when they can, but now Josh is at the point where the feelings run deep, and he doesn’t think he can handle the idea of going back to Columbus and doing the long distance relationship thing again.

“What’s up?” Brendon asks, toothbrush in his mouth as he’s pulling his tank top over his head. _God_ , Josh is in love with him, even when he’s doing the simplest of things.   
  
“I talked to Tyler tonight for a while,” Josh says, and Brendon hums to acknowledge that he heard him. “We.. figured some stuff out that you’re kind of a part of.”

“Oh yeah?” There’s the noise of Brendon spitting into the sink and the water running before he pops back into the bedroom, crawling onto the bed next to Josh. “What about?”

“Well…” Josh says, turning to face Brendon and humming before he decides to just come out with it. “I’m not going back to Columbus. I’m in love with you. I don’t want to leave or do long distance again, and I just--”

There isn’t time to say anything else, because Brendon is pulling Josh in close and kissing him, letting it linger until both of them need to part and catch their breath.  
  
“I’m in love with you too,” Brendon finally says, grinning over at him. “How soon can we get your stuff out here?”

“Tyler and I already talked about that--” 

Apparently that’s all that Brendon needs to hear, because then they’re kissing again, giggling into it and cuddling together under the blankets. They spend the rest of the night like that until they’re finally talked themselves out about living together.

Not for the first time since quarantine began, Josh feels perfect and content - and right at home where he belongs.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
